…yet there is madness in it.

Re: Punk This Library

“What”, asks Sara Brumfield of the blog Steampunk Home, “could be more steampunk than a library?”

Well, yeah, I thought, maybe Sherlock Holmes’s library–a fireplace, a lot of leatherbound books, and some comfortable armchairs–but the modern library? No way. If pressed to describe the decor of my office deep in the bowels of the University of Arnor library, I would use words like “Early Budget Cut” or maybe “Seriously Institutional”.

But the more I think about it, the more I realize that Sara is right. After all, what is steampunk really but the fusion of two disparate things–the organic and the industrial, the ancient and the modern? Most libraries can be described using those four terms to some degree. Our work as librarians, after all, has remained largely the same since the 19th century, it’s only the tools we use (and the kinds of information we now manage) that have changed.

Looking around my office, I realize that it could be described as “steampunky”–provided you interpreted that term rather broadly. In the back workroom, for example, salvaged wooden card catalogs (scrounged and transported by me and a rag-tag ensemble of put-upon students) hold row upon row of oral history interviews on audiocassette. The reclaimed card catalogs sit beside a table with a 21st century digitization station (our audio transfer/preservation station) which in turn shares tabletop space with a reel to reel tape player (certainly retro). Industrial shelving (another salvaged item) holds dark grey archival boxes made from acid-free paper (for audio storage) while the off-white walls show off an assortment of framed posters. (Historical Arnorian subjects, of course. My contribution to the office after the library’s renovation several years back).

So we’re not a cluttered, boring office, we’re a nascent Steampunk workshop. Yeah! Feel that steamy goodness! Now if I can only find my raygun, maybe I can eliminate some of these paperwork piles ….